http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqfyl28dpY0#t=6m13 s
Strange Brady Guide PDF
http://static.capcom.com/umvc3/manuals/04A_Doctor_Strange.pdf <<<< READ
Key points if you’re too lazy to read the whole PDF and some added notes from myself about how you can employ what was said in guide.
VVVVVV
STRATEGY GUIDE’S INTRO GUIDELINES FOR STRANGE
[details=Spoiler] Bolded points from strategy guide.
*** Key Point 1: When given time, you can perform several attacks that can lead to into a Teleportation mix-up:***
Eye of Agamotto is a great defensive tool and a key component of his mix-ups. It places Strange’s opponent in guard stun for a huge amount of time and inflicts sizeable chip damage.
DevilJin’s notes: I definitely agree with this. Before you release the projectile it has 10 points of low durability meaning you can use it to cover your firepower and help you set up yellow graces to start your most powerful mix up. You can also just release them as they work like a weaker stalking flame that wears down in hits the longer they’re on screen. At closer ranges though it is a nice self assist although it scales a bit on hit. The chip damage is nice and it generally buys the time you need to set up a M dagger or assist teleport mix up.
Daggers of Denak M has slow start up but allows for tricky teleportation mix ups when safely pulled off.
DevilJin’s notes: Pretty self explanatory. Daggers of denak M are weak versions of graces you can use to catch people blocking wrong and set up combos. These can be maneuvered aroun by faster characters unlike the 3 yellow grace beam so you definitely wanna make sure you have another gameplan if the M daggers get blocked or maneuvered around.
***Finding time to create Grace of Hoggot L orbs allows for an unavoidable mix up using Flames of the Faltine ***
This is easily the most important part of Strange’s point gameplan. It should always be what you’re thinking about achieving the most. If you aren’t finding a way to implement the yellow graces into your gameplan you really need to in order to unlock his full potential. His other projectile based left/right mix ups are strong but can be escaped by fast movement from faster characters. To ensure you can get those characters in a mix up no matter where they are on the screen you will need to learn to put together the two and 3 yellow grace projectiles.
The reason this is so important is because this sets up an unavoidable mix up. What this means is that it sets up a mix up that is akin to Dormammu’s stalking flare XFC port around mix up except the mixup is much more instant and requires no meter or XF burn. Long as the opponent is somewhere on the screen (at super jump height, on the ground, anywhere outside of the exact corner) they have to deal with a B Slash mix up when you enact the 3 grace yellow beam. There is no way that I’ve seen to avoid it that doesn’t involve mashing on an invincible super. You either block the right way at the time and then Strange will just set up more shit, or worst case scenario they get hit into full combos.
If the 3 yellow grace beam hits an airborne opponent…they are in an unrecoverable juggle state no matter how high they are in the air until they land. If this hits them on the ground, crumple state into high damage fly to impact palm loop combo.
The 2 yellow grace projectiles are still really fast and track well but are still not quite as unavoidable as the 3 yellow grace which is literally unavoidable for the most part outside of mashing on hard drive or other invincible super. If you don’t find time to set up the 3 yellow beam, the 2 yellow projectiles are still extremely fast, hard to avoid and can also lead to full combos. They just don’t give you quite the strength in mix up or hit confirm ability that the 3 yellow beam will.
***Cross ups using crossover and Teleportation M are nearly impossible for adversaries to see coming, as long as you have time for Strange to safely teleport. ***
DevilJin’s Notes: This is standard Dante/Wesker/Wolvie/X-23 fare. Call assist while they’re not in block stun, right before it hits them do a M port to cross up or do a L port to fake the cross up. If they get hit, go in. If blocked the assist will keep them from being able to push you away so set up M daggers or agomotto to create another cross up.
If you wanna get really tricky you can use that time to set up one yellow grace and then purposely start shooting M swords at the opponent. On hit or block this will push you really far away from the opponent on purpose but this is kinda what you want. From there you can release an eye of agomotto from far range to protect you and set up another one or 2 yellow graces. Once that has been enabled call on the faltine projectile and get free mix up from anywhere on the screen again.
M swords are technically negative around neg 15 or 16 on hit/block but the pushback these create on hit makes them nearly unpunishable by anything but beam supers or bionic arm type stuff. The ideal situation you want to keep M sword safe and push you back far enough to set up more shit is to have an assist, L/M dagger or eye of agomotto called during that keeps them in hit or block stun longer to keep the M sword safe and push you back to where you want to be to set up yellow graces.
Key Point 2: How do you buy time to set up Doctor Strange’s Teleportation Mix ups?**
Impact Palm and Mystic Sword L lead to big damage when they connect, making competitors think twice about approaching on the ground.
DevilJin’s Notes: Both of these moves are moves that you can easily hit confirm on hit. The only issue being impact palm can be rather negative on hit and doesn’t have much range. Mystic sword L is great against people that can’t crouch it but you will have trouble using this against characters that are small when crouching unless they are airborne. I’m sure mystic sword L will be useful as an anti air though so I’ll do some testing there.
Mystic Sword M projectiles are quick and difficult to stop, allowing Doctor Strange to fight from long rnage, control the ground, and force his rival to jump.
DevilJin’s Notes: Like explained earlier, Mystic Sword M is your poke and pushes people back far away which is ideal for setting up your yellow graces for full screen near unavoidlable mix ups. Once you get pushed back enough put an agomotto on screen and build up your graces. Most characters use normals as their main spacing/poking tool but Strange is…Strange of course so Capcom designed him so you have projectiles that suit this purpose the best. Making Strange more or less a character that rushes down with projectiles.
Like explained earlier, the M mystic sword is negative on hit and block but the pushback makes it unpunishable by most moves still. Against quick beam supers or bionic arms you’ll want to call a cross over assist first and/or release eye of agomotto at them so you can safely shoot M sword at them and push them back at the range you want to set up graces
Once opponents have taken to the skies, air b+H option selects to either air throw the foe or release an air H attack that can be converted into a big combo.
DevilJin’s Notes: I haven’t messed with this much but I assume this is a nice way to deal with airborne opponents along with L mystic sword. Strange players early have been complaining about dealing with pressure from above so this should help discover options. His illusion counter has generous active frames (it’s essentially a counter that’s active and allows you to counter for 20 frames or a 1/3 of a second, A LONG ASS TIME) also so that may be something to look into also.
Teleportation M and H can be used to evade attacks and create space away from the attacker.
DevilJin’s Notes: Not sure what to make of this yet since Strange’s teleports all track the opponent but I assume they’re saying you can use his M and H teleports to go behind attacks that have bad recovery on whiff and make your punishment. His H teleport has the shortest recovery at 14 frames so this may be the best for that specific purpose.
**Crossover assists are great for tying up the opponent long enough to let Doctor Strange safely set up a mix up. **
DevilJin’s Notes: Explains itself pretty much.
Extra Key Points for Strange
If your competitior is already guarding Eye of Agamotto, call a crossover assist simultaneously with Impact Palm, then cancel to Daggers of Denak M
If your rival is barely out of range of the Eye of Agomotto, simply hit with impact palm and immediately cancel into teleportation M or H
From medium range, simply cancel Impact Palm into Daggers of Denak M.
**From long range, call a long range crossover assist before using Grace of Hoggoth L, then perform Eye of Agamotto again. Repeat until your opponent gets closer. **
Whenever the ground version of Daggers of Denak M can safely be summoned into play at medium range, you can easily set up a mix up ---- simply summon the porjectiles, then immediately use teleportation M to cross up your opponent, or teleportation H to stay in front. If your adversary guards in the wrong directions they’ll get hit by the daggers, allowing you to easily transition into a combo!
With at least one Grace of Hoggoth L orb out, Flames of the Faltine also sets up its own mix up. To make up for the requirement of having orbs in play, flames of the faltine can be used to set up a mix up at super jump height, and it reliably hits adversaries jumping around. Simply fire the projectile, then use teleportation M or H right before the redirected projectile is going to hit the opposing character. Having two or three yellow orbs out is preferred; when the flames of the faltine projectile is powered up twice, it becomes nearly impossible for your competitor to avoid. It also causes much more hit stun, since an opponent getting hit out of the air remains stuck in hitstun all the way until hitting the ground, giving plenty of time for you to convert the hit into a juggle combo.
**If Impact Palm is guarded, call a crossover assist before using Mystic Sword M; almost everythign else is unsafe. Alternativel, perform a late chain cancel to the S launcher to catch adversaries trying to retaliate. THe S launcher is incredibly unsafe, so this tactic is best used sparingly. **
**If Impact Palm hits, cancel to Mystic Sword L, then dash forward to get a a full combo. **
**If the Impact Palm whiffs completely, cancel to Mystic Sword M to prevent your competitor from dashing in and hitting Doctor Strange with a combo. **[/details]
Frequent issues with Strange and how to overcome:
*** Q. Having trouble opening people up with Strange. Sure…I land may land one mix up but if I try a left/right mix up and it gets blocked what do I do from there? It’s not like I got beast frames on normals and a command grab.***
A. I would read the above and the posts below to get ideas. Lot of ways to go about it but it’s basically about using a combination of all of quite a few of your special moves and assist to get pushed back far enough from the opponent to set more things up. You ideally want to use all your tools to push yourself away from the opponent and set up another mix up or get graces on the screen at the very least.
Q. People keep jumping around outside of the area I need to set up left/right mix ups.
A. This is where your yellow graces will need to come into play. Read above and check further posts below for strategies on how to utilize 2 and especially 3 yellow grace beam mix ups that basically set up anywhere on screen B Slash style mix ups. The yellow graces allow Strange to become about the only character in the game outside of Phoenix that can mix you up while he’s high up in the air. Even better…even if your OPPONENT is high up in the air the 2 and 3 yellow grace projectiles will ensure they can get put into full combos.
Q. People keep jumping on top of me when they get in and I can’t seem to get people off.
A. As far as anti air is concerned you have a lot of options. s.L is a great disjointed hit box that will even stuff some dive kicks with the correct timing and convert to combos. Starts up in 4 frames also. L mystic sword is another great anti air with a big hit box that on hit can allow you to hit confirm into combos against airborne opponents. Works decently against on the ground against characters that aren’t too small also. I would also experiment with using bolts of balthaak from a range backed up with eye of agomotto or assists to create a wall. Keeping an eye of agomotto on the screen is a nice way to deter offense also.
Air throw b+H option select is nice because you either get an air throw or an air H which has big range and hit confirms easily on hit into air or ground impact palm which can start combos.
Lastly illusion is probably a rather under explored option for dealing with offense. Starts up in 4 frames, is active for like 20 frames, counters all high and mid ranged attacks and basically teleports you near the opponent after it activates. 20 active frames means you get ALL day to to land the counter as long as you know a high or mid ranged physical attack is coming. You can just know they’re going to press a button, whip it out and the illusion will most likely work. It does have a bit of recoil/recovery even after successful use so this may only be useful against attacks with slower recovery.
Things you may not know about Dr.Strange
** Dr. Strange is about as unsafe as it gets without assists. The true character of almost “no blockstrings”. **What I mean by this is that some people think that Vergil is a really unsafe character but he has ways of cancelling his specials even in his regular forum to keep his block strings relatively safe. Dr.Strange…has literally no block strings without an assist. Meaning that just about everything is negative or leaves you open. This is a rare case in Marvel where you can usually cancel anything into anything else to stay safe despite the frames. This means you’ll have to get really crafty with Strange’s special moves and the assists you provide him to keep him safe when people block.
Even moves on hit are not exactly safe. His M mystic sword which is a almost a requirement to fight a projectile war vs. some characters is negative 16 on block and negative 15 on HIT. Meaning even on hit characters like Spencer or Hawkeye can super punish your M mystic sword. This means again that Strange players will have to get really crafty about how they make their offense work in certain matchups and it may take a while to figure out.
** His illusion (b+H) although it doesn’t recover instantly after successfully “counters” has some interesting properties.** It is active on the 4th frame, active for a whole 20 frames (longest active counter in the game that isn’t a super) and** has ONLY ONE FRAME of recovery.** Meaning you can pretty much just guess counter at any high or mid ranged physical attack and if you guess wrong, can go back to blocking basically immediately after. The 20 frames active gives a huge window to guess counter in general. Making it a pretty risk free counter against aerial rushdown. I’m thinking this could have some interesting use against certain types of special moves and mix ups so I’ll have to investigate and see what I can get out of it.
L mystic sword is 0 on block, makes contact with most crouching opponents and can lead to juggles on aerial and ground hits. Has a big projectile based hit box that’s great for stuffing aerial moves like dive kicks and air dash normals. This can be relatively safe against bigger crouching characters on block. Against smaller crouching characters some of the hits will whiff and leave you open to punishment.
If you notice you have someone in the corner with Strange your mix up is a bit more limited to flight based high lows or throw. What you can do is super jump over the opponents head and throw a L dagger of denak to push them out of the corner. The only issue with this is that the opponent can purposely block the dagger and then advance guard the dagger so they throw themselves back in the corner. Be aware of this and find ways to keep your pressure up if they advance guard the L dagger.
Things I’m trying to test with Dr.Strange
1. How to create safe block strings and pressure. He makes Vergil look extremely safe on block in comparison since there’s literally almost nothing you can do block string wise that leaves you safe unless you call an assist in the middle of it. Least that’s the way it seems.
2. Test the tracking of 2 and 3 yellow graces against airborne opponents and how to reliably hit confirm and combo off an airborne faltine hit opponent.
3. Find uses for bolts of balthaak (atk+S) special on point. Strangely a lot of the cast seems to duck under this on block but maybe combined with assists there could be some interesting use?
4. Find uses for his illusion (b+H) counter. Although a successful counter doesn’t lead to the world against a c.L or a dive kick…I feel its ability to option select into throw and the fact that it only has one frame of recovery on whiff will provide some interesting techniques against certain type of attacks.
s.:h: xx impact palm xx mystic sword